Many free, useful resources are available online on various aspects of mental health. The following are some key organisations and resources.

The global burden

The WHO leads on providing technical advice on mental health. Its mental health atlas sets out country-by-country baseline data on measures of burden, services and governance, including suicide rates and human resources. The WHO's Mental health action plan 2013-2020 is designed to guide countries' own action plans for developing services, policies, legislation and strategies based on evidence-based practice.

Suicide affects poor people disproportionately: 75 per cent of the estimated 800,000 suicides a year occur in low- and middle-income countries, according to a WHO webpage on suicide statistics.

An article introducing a 2007 Lancet series on mental health explains the link with physical conditions. It argues that because this link has been overlooked, statisticians have probably underestimated how much of the global burden of disease is linked to mental health conditions.

Another article in the same series describes how the problem is compounded in the global South by inadequate resources for mental health, inequity in their distribution and inefficiencies in how they are used. A recent Guardian report summarises this nicely.

Risk factors including conflict and disease

In its 2012 report Risks to mental health, the WHO says determinants for poor mental health fall into three broad groups: personality issues such as poor self-esteem; social circumstances including bereavement and poverty; and environmental factors such as exposure to conflict and disease.

A separate WHO report explores these risk factors and argues that mental health issues cannot be considered separately from other areas of development. A review article examines the link between poverty and suicide, personality and mood disorders.

Both mild and severe mental disorders are common where people are affected by disasters or conflict. The WHO and UNHCR (the UN refugee agency) have published mental health assessment tools and guidance for use by staff working in humanitarian emergencies.

The profound psychological impacts on children and adolescents were discussed in a symposium convened last year by UNICEF (the UN Children's Fund) and others.

And a paper in International Health, part of a special issue on global mental health [link to PDFs], reviews trends in humanitarian crises and documents a shift in focus from measuring burden to documenting the effectiveness of interventions to thinking about how to deliver care.

Culture, stigma and attitudes

Culture affects how mental disorders are viewed and the stigma that people with mental issues can experience. It also affects how patients describe clinical syndromes and accept treatments - an article in Scientific American explores the effect of culture on how mental illness is labelled.

In much of Africa, social stigma means mental illness is a "silent epidemic", according to an article on social and cultural aspects of mental health on the continent. Stigma can be influenced by how people perceive the cause of the disorder, which itself is strongly influenced by culture - for example a condition might be less stigmatised if it is believed to have a genetic origin, according to a study in Chinese Americans.

Because beliefs about mental health in developing countries can differ from those associated with Western medicine services need to be offered in a culturally sensitive way. A review article examines the challenges of doing this to create 'fit for purpose' interventions.

And another paper provides a culturally sensitive framework for psychosocial intervention that has since been widely applied. There are also non-traditional ways of tackling stigma. One example is Kenya's leading psychiatrist, Frank Njenga, who uses a TV talk show to promote better understanding of conditions such as schizophrenia and substance abuse.

Penny Warren is a freelance journalist based in the United Kingdom, and Neerja Chowdhary is a psychiatrist and global mental health coordinator at International Medical Corps based in India. Warren can be contacted at penny.warren@btinternet.com and Chowdhary at neerjachowdhary@hotmail.com

AllAfrica publishes around 800 reports a day from more than 140 news organizations and over 500 other institutions and individuals, representing a diversity of positions on every topic. We publish news and views ranging from vigorous opponents of governments to government publications and spokespersons. Publishers named above each report are responsible for their own content, which AllAfrica does not have the legal right to edit or correct.

AllAfrica is a voice of, by and about Africa - aggregating, producing and distributing 800 news and information items daily from over 140 African news organizations and our own reporters to an African and global public. We operate from Cape Town, Dakar, Abuja, Monrovia, Nairobi and Washington DC.